Russell Ingall made a solid start to his final outing for Stone Brothers Racing after positing a top ten time in practice for the final round of the V8 Supercar Championship at Phillip Island.
The former champion, who confirmed earlier this week that he will leave the Ford stable at the end of the season for pastures new, was outside the top ten for the first hour of the session as the Caltex Racing crew struggled to get the most out of the old tyres being used, but a late run in the second hour saw him jump up to eighth – eventually slipping two places before the session drew to a close.
“The times from practice today probably don't give a good indication of our true position in the field,” the veteran said. “We are really struggling with tyres. We have trashed a lot of tyres in the last three meetings and it's depleted our stock.
“We are only a few tenths off the front runners on some pretty average rubber so it doesn't put us in bad shape for qualifying tomorrow.”
Team-mate James Courtney in the JELD-WEN Motorsport Falcon endured a more trying day after going the wrong way with the set-up of his car on his first set of practice tyres.
However, having worked hard to turn things round, Courtney simply ran out of time to try and jump back up the order and said he would see if the team had gone things right once he fits new tyres for qualifying.
“We had a pretty tough session today,” he said “We don't have many decent tyres to use at all. The first set of tyres pointed us in the wrong direction with our set up. We got back on track with a second set of tyres.
“The boys did some pretty lengthy changes to the JELD-WEN Falcon in the session. We ran out of time to have a crack at it at the end.
“Once we get some green tyres on it tomorrow we will know if we have got it right or not.”
